{"id":4460,"date":"2021-12-19T05:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-19T05:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4460"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:37","slug":"spiderman-knows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4460","title":{"rendered":"SPIDERMAN KNOWS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tonight I saw the latest Spiderman movie at our local theater.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was an enjoyable two hours, and to me the best part was the theme. (I know &#8230; I sound like an English teacher.)<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But truly, (without giving any spoilers) the movie was about how Peter Parker would rather see a villain redeemed than to see a villain simply vanquished. Even one who has done him great personal harm.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I find that a deeply Christian concept.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is exactly what thrills me every time I see any version of <i>The Christmas Carol<\/i>. No matter what license Hollywood takes with Dickens&#8217; story, it cannot avoid staying true to the heart of the story: a terrible old sinner getting a second chance, leading to a genuine change of heart.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most movies assume the audience longs to see the villain get his comeuppance &#8211; and we do.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But is there a deeper, more Christlike part of us that is even happier to see the villain changed?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tonight I saw the latest Spiderman movie at our local theater.\u00a0 It was an enjoyable two hours, and to me the best part was the theme. (I know &#8230; I sound like an English teacher.) But truly, (without giving any spoilers) the movie was about how Peter Parker would rather see a villain redeemed than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4461,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions\/4461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}